In daily life and at industrial sites, it is sometimes required to check a material of a specific article. In other words, in the manufacturing or construction fields, kinds of supplied materials should be checked prior to launching a work. In addition, in the daily life, according to circumstances, the kind of a material should be checked in order to prevent a contact with a dangerous material.
Recently, a robot prosthetic hand is being actively studied, and the tactile impression is an important element when manipulating an article by using a prosthetic hand. For this, it is important to attach a tactile sensor to the prosthetic hand in order to feel the tactile impression. In particular, temperature transmission is important in a social aspect where humans and other animals feel sensations as well as in a functional aspect where an article is manipulated. In addition, temperature transmission plays an important role when determining the material of a touched article. Therefore, there is needed a device which is attached to a robot prosthetic hand to precisely determine temperature and material of an article.
Meanwhile, in case of a surgical robot or a cell manipulation robot, force sensor or vision information is used to sense a manipulated article, which however requires a large-sized system. Therefore, it is needed to develop a device capable of searching various materials and identifying an article of a desired material.